Wednesday, september 19, 2012
wednesday
Kindergarten enrollment in Laconia unexpectedly ticks up 17% By Gail OBer
THE LACONIA DAILY SUN
LACONIA — Superintendent Bob Champlin told the School Board last night that the School District has about 24 more kindergarten students enrolled this year than was anticipated. Even though the School District has outreach programs for parents of children younger than kindergarten age, it is nearly impossible to predict how many student will enroll each new year, he said. “If we had known we would have come (to the board) for an additional session,” he added. This is the third year the city has offered full-day kindergarten and Champlin told the board there are eight classes — two at Elm Street School, and three each at Pleasant Street School and Woodland Heights Elementary School. Ideally, Champlin said the perfect class size for kindergarten is between 16 to 18 students and the unexpected influx has pushed the average class size to 21 students per class. He told the board the class size is manageable largely because the district had see K page 10
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Veggie growing for ‘own use’ not legal in much of city Zoning Board discovers letter of the law when revisiting the issue of raising chickens By Michael Kitch THE LACONIA DAILY SUN
LACONIA — Seven years after the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) reluctantly granted a teenage girl a variance entitling her to keep two pet hens at her home on Old North Main Street the chickens have come back to the board to roost. This week the ZBA convened a sub-committee to review the definition of “agriculture” in the zoning ordinance, which not only severely restricts raising chickens but also the growing of flowers and vegetables in most parts of the city. In May, Charles Drake of 27 Bay Street applied to the ZBA for a variance to keep
between four and six laying hens, with no rooster, in an existing shed on his property, a 0.29-acre fenced lot. One abutter spoke to the request, the owner of an apartment building with seven units, who asked if tenants complained of noise or smells, could the city remove the chickens. Another, Drake’s closest abutter, wrote to the board that he had no objections. The property is zoned “residential single family” (RS) where agriculture, which includes keeping chickens, is not a permitted use. However, when the board turned to the ordinance it found that chickens were the least of its problems.
The zoning ordinance provides a lengthy definition of “agriculture,” which reads, in its entirety, “the production, keeping or maintenance, for sale, lease or personal use, of plants and animals useful to man, including but not limited to forages and sod crops; grains and seed crops; dairy animals and dairy products, poultry and poultry products; livestock, including beef cattle, sheep, swine, horses, ponies, mules or goats or any mutations or hybrids thereof, including the breeding and grazing of any or see ZOnInG page 10
Full steam ahead
Steam boats head out onto Lake Winnipesaukee from Lee’s Mill in Moultonborough on Sunday, last day of the 40th Annual Lee’s Mill Steamboat meet, said the be the largest said gathering in the country. (Daryl Carlson/for The Laconia Daily Sun)
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